Two Tom Hardys won’t make Legend legendary

Universal Pictures

Way back in the Dark Ages of the 20th century — 1990 to be exact — a small British film was released that told the story of identical twin gangsters, the Kray brothers. That film, The Krays, was notable for casting brothers Martin and Gary Kemp, two years apart in age, as the twins. You may not know the names now, but back then they were the driving force behind the group Spandau Ballet, which had the massive hit “True” blasting from radios all over the world. Could these singers, who had never before acted, pull off this challenge? They did, and the movie (which seems to have gotten lost in a vault somewhere) was gritty, violent, and pretty terrific.

Since that film is little seen these days, it was inevitable that someone should want to tackle a remake or retelling of the Kray brothers’ story. And with modern technology, there’s also the novelty of having one actor play twins like Armie Hammer did in The Social Network (or like Bette Midler and Lily Tomlin did in Big Business). And who better to cast than the red hot Tom Hardy? Not only that, but what if the film was written and directed by Brian Helgeland, who did period crime drama so, so well with L.A. Confidential? It sounds like a recipe for success, no?

Well, no. Legend does tell the story of the brothers, Ronald and Reggie, but what we get are little pieces of their story, little bits here and there about their crimes and incarcerations, and absolutely noting about the influence their mum had over them, which The Krays featured heavily (with The Omen‘s Billie Whitelaw as their mother). Here, mum is just a housewife happy to serve tea and cakes to anyone who sits at her dining room table. We see Reg become a London kingpin by becoming a nightclub owner, and Ron mucking it all up with his mental imbalance. What the main story focuses on, however, is the romance between Reggie and Frances, how she always gives him the benefit of the doubt until a violent act finally tears them apart.

I have been looking forward to seeing this movie for quite some time, and perhaps my anticipation got the best of me because at one point I really felt like walking out. I have walked out of one movie in my life and not because it was bad (but that’s another story). But this one just rubbed me the wrong way from the beginning. It’s been decades since I’ve seen The Krays, but I remember how good it was, how gritty and realistic it felt. This feels like a Lifetime made-for-TV movie. It’s glossy, it’s clean, it’s got some violent outbursts, but only one of those moments feels particularly brutal. Worst of all, and this is what made my skin truly crawl, was the awful, inappropriate musical score by Carter Burwell. Burwell is no hack, as demonstrated by his long association with the Coen Brothers, but here his music was totally out of place, making it feel even more like a bad Lifetime movie than it already did. It makes me angry thinking about it even now!

There was also a sound issue that may have been the theater’s fault, but it was an odd one if it was. Being a British film, the actors speak in very thick, almost Cockney accents which makes them hard to understand even with good audio. But any male voice that had a lot of deep bass to it was completely muffled. I could hear Emily Browning just fine, but I got maybe two words out of both Tom Hardys during the film’s 131 minutes, and Ronald almost sounded like Hardy’s take on Bane.

Hardy was fine as the twins, Reg quite dashing, Ron not so much. As Ronald, Hardy hunched himself over a bit giving his physique a little more girth. The makeup department added a slightly crooked nose and some horrific baby teeth (that were just as distracting as the awful music) to cover his already kind of messed up bottom teeth. He didn’t really have to do anything special physically to portray Reggie. I did like the fact that no one shied away from Ron’s homosexuality, but I felt that everyone’s acceptance came off as too PC. It’s not like they were just saying it because they were afraid of him, they were all just accepting and happy that he had the balls to be so up front about it (Kingsman star Taron Egerton plays one of his boy toys, but there is no depiction of romance or sex). It just rang false.

Browning is extremely sweet and fetching, and she really is the focal point of the film and of the brothers. Christopher Eccleston plays the police officer obsessed with bringing the brothers down, but he is given very little screen time, and is even pulled off the case for a long period of time. But another casting choice also got my goat. An American gangster comes to London to partner up with the Krays. So who do you cast? Chazz Palmenteri! Seriously, how cliché can you get? That made me just as angry as the music! A look at the cast list on IMDB also reveals actors playing famous faces like Joan Collins, Shirley Bassey and Sonny Liston … not that you’d ever know that by watching the movie. Collins’ name is mentioned but you never really see her. It’s maddening.

I think deep down, there was a really good movie in here somewhere. I’ve not seen any of Helgeland’s six other directorial efforts, and looking over his writing credits, I’m beginning to think the success of L.A. Confidential is owed more to director Curtis Hanson and writer James Ellroy, who wrote the source novel. Perhaps with a better director at the helm, Legend could have become as legendary as The Krays.